The Attendoli were prosperous farmers of the Romagna (near Ravenna) who first assumed the name Sforza (“Force”) with the founder of the dynasty, the condottiereMuzio Attendolo (1369–1424). Muzio’s illegitimate son Francesco Sforza, also a condottiere, became duke of Milan in 1450 through his marriage to the daughter of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti.

Document in which Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, granted commercial rights to Giovanni Merlo and …

Francesco’s eldest son, Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1444–76), succeeded his father in 1466. Though traditionally characterized as despotic, extravagant, and dissolute, Galeazzo Maria was apparently a capable ruler who took an active interest in agriculture, constructed canals for irrigation and transportation, introduced the cultivation of rice, and encouraged commerce, particularly the manufacture of silk and wool. He was a patron of musicians, artists, poets, and scholars, and himself wrote treatises on hunting. In foreign policy, however, he followed an indecisive course that ended in Milan’s virtual isolation.

Galeazzo Maria was assassinated during Christmas festivities by three conspirators who vainly hoped to set the stage for a popular insurrection. But the murder left Milan to the uncertainties of the regency of his widow, Bona of Savoy, who ruled with the aid of an unpopular chancellor, Cicco Simonetta, and to the brief, troubled reign of Galeazzo’s son Gian Galeazzo (1469–94), whose power was soon usurped by his uncle Ludovico the Moor.

After Ludovico was driven from power by Louis XII of France in 1499, his sons Massimiliano (1493–1530) and Francesco Maria (1495–1535) took refuge in Germany. In 1513, backed by the Swiss, Massimiliano returned to Milan. Three years later Francis I of France attacked the city. The Milanese and their Swiss allies were defeated by French and Venetian troops at Marignano, southeast of Milan, and Massimiliano yielded the duchy to Francis, retiring to Paris to live on a pension. Francesco escaped north to Trento, returning to be set up as duke of Milan in 1522 by Emperor Charles V, after the defeat of the French at the Battle of Bicocca (north of Milan). Francesco’s death without heirs ended the ducal male line, and the duchy passed to Charles V and the Habsburgs.

Several other branches of the Sforza family survived, the descendants of Sforza Secondo (an illegitimate son of Francesco Sforza) becoming the counts Sforza, one of whom was the anti-Fascist statesman and foreign minister of Italy, Carlo Sforza (1873–1952).

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Within the duchy of Milan, meanwhile, the Sforza family sought to maintain its newly acquired power. Francesco (duke 1450–66) provided his subjects not only relative peace and patronage of humanism and the arts but also the disadvantages of tyrannical rule. His successor, the cruel and lustful Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1466–76), was assassinated in a conspiracy of three young men who...

...the city and founded a new dynasty, basing his claim on his marriage to an illegitimate daughter of one of the Visconti. A period of prosperity then began for Milan, based on the power of the Sforza family and the introduction of the silk industry. It was the golden period of the Italian Renaissance, typified by the splendour of the Sforza court.

...under the exarchate of Ravenna. Later disputed between the popes and the Holy Roman emperors, Pesaro came into the hands of the Malatesta family of Rimini about 1285. It was sold in 1445 to the Sforza family, and in 1512, through the influence of Pope Julius II, it went to the pope’s nephew Francesco Maria I della Rovere, duke di Urbino. It reverted to the Papal States in 1631.

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A soldier of fortune, Muzio Attendolo (1369-1424) changed his family name to Sforza, meaning "force." From the region around Ravenna, Italy, he founded a dynasty that ruled Milan for a century. Muzio’s illegitimate son Francesco (1401-66) was also a soldier of fortune, essentially a mercenary who fought for whoever would pay him. He grew up in the court of Ferrara and fought under his father until Muzio drowned in a battle in 1424. Francesco remained a soldier for the next 20 years. His wife was the daughter of the duke of Milan. When the duke died in 1447, leaving the city to the king of Naples, Francesco responded with war. He blockaded the city, starving it into submission. On Feb. 24, 1450, he entered the city and became duke of Milan. He died on March 8, 1466, and was succeeded by his eldest son Galeazzo Maria.

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